


carrying you home

by firetan



Category: Nurarihyon no Mago | Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow To Update, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21600850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firetan/pseuds/firetan
Summary: Rikuo sinks into the lake in the Hanyō Village, and wakes up to the scent of kerria and his father's voice.I said over and over that I was going to eventually rewritehis father's son, and I figured I really did need to follow up on that. So here we go — Nurarihyon no Mago, time travel AU, take two!
Comments: 28
Kudos: 162





	carrying you home

Blood.

Blood, and flowers.

Water, cold and still and strange like a half-forgotten memory.

Blood, flowers, and the scent of water, ever slipping out of reach, always just out of grasp.

A girl's perfume, bitter and strange, soft and sweet, a caress along the side of his cheek as light as a feather and black as night. Can a touch be black? Can a scent, a feeling?

Water surrounds, cold and strange and no longer still. The blood blossoms, like flowers in spring, like a diffusing scent that can't be escaped, tainting the stillness and warping the chill into something painful and yet painless. Breath and voice have become muted and dull, echoing through a great distance. Echoing.

Echoing.

_Ah, that's it, isn't it?_

_He's dying._

Sinking into water, hands holding his arms as a voice speaks somewhere too far away, should he be sad? Should he be afraid? It's not a scent anymore, just the memory of what used to be, but he can smell blood and flowers. They're surrounding him, aren't they? Blossoming in the water, like the beginning of spring, like things breaking through the cold to be born again.

He's dying.

He's not afraid of it, and yet...

He doesn't want to die.

Hands hold his arms, caress his face, hands pull him up towards the surface and hands pull him down towards the roots. The water tastes like blood, tastes sweet like the scent of flowers in bloom, burns like sake after a vow.

_God, his vows._

Did any of them survive?

Is he dying alone, or is he just going to rejoin his parade once more?

The voice is speaking, somewhere far above, somewhere far away, somewhere in the years he tried to leave behind. She's laughing. She's crying. She's whispering, maybe in prayer, maybe in command. Maybe making wishes.

_What is she asking for?_

Voices ask him to come back, call him.

He doesn't know how to tell them he can't, not anymore.

He's dying.

_God, please, God, he doesn't want to die._

_Not like this._

Not alone in the water, with only the quiet blood and the quiet cold to hold him. Not alone in the water, surrounded by the scent of spring flowers and the wishes of a woman who can't save him no matter how she tries. Not alone with hands pulling him up and dragging him down.

Not alone, without his parade.

Without his family.

He can't leave them behind.

_Please, God, if you're listening, if you exist somewhere in this world._

He can't leave them behind.

Not like this.

_Not_

_like_

_this_

In the distance, he can smell yamabuki roses on the breeze.

And Rikuo

opens

his eyes

_again._

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! I'm really glad to be back on my bullshit with this, one of my favorite tropes, for one of my favorite fandoms!
> 
> I really am sorry it's taken me so long to get back to this. I've lost inspiration so many times, lost the thumb drive I was storing rewrite version 2.0 on, been bogged down by RL and personal projects... it's been a lot. But we've finally got a start!
> 
> I don't have any idea how frequently I'll be able to update this. I don't know where it's going to go. I know I wasn't satisfied with how _hfs_ panned out in terms of trajectory — it wasn't planned well, or paced in a particularly compelling way. I don't have a structure yet in mind for this update, but I'd like to hope I've learned enough as a writer in the past few years that I can do a better job now.
> 
> Thank you all for your incredibly patience and support. I really hope this will be somewhat worth the wait.
> 
> <3


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